Quickstart Pack Page 1 Spo()ybeans! The Goth Comix Roleplaying Game

Willkommen! Welcome to the Spookybeans Quickstart Pack. This document is provided as an easy introduction to the Spookybeans game mechanics and as a way of getting your feet wet, as it were. What’s included

Introductory scenario: Going Out of Business A quick overview of the rules Sample characters Blank character sheets

Going Out of Business Introduction The Euphorium, everyone’s favorite one-stop shop for all things hippie/goth/punk since 1973, is being forced to close their doors if they can’t come up with $100,000 in back rent. The store owners, Sunflower and her husband Smokey, have been friends with the locals in The Hollow for a long time, but as drug paraphernalia started to become less popular, and people started to buy their games and comics online, this small mom-and-pop store could not afford to make ends meet. Chad Bradley (the Euphorium’s landlord and all-around corporate dirtbag) has found this an opportune time to kick out the hippies and tear down the store to build a franchised yuppie watering hole called “Mondays”. Sunflower has three days to collect the cash or the store will be no more. Since the spookybeans are regulars in the shop, Sunflower offers the kids a chance to help them raise the money to stay open. Opposing the spookybeans are the Yuppie Youth Organization, a preppy right-wing high school club that torments our heroes on a day-to-day basis, and they will try and make it near impossible for them to raise any money by countering their efforts. The YYO is made up of all the preps, jocks, cheerleaders, and wanna-bes and rich kids at Ross Perot high school. Game Setup There are basically two ways to run this scenario:

Straight: If you have less than 4 players, have them choose spookybean characters, and run the YYO as NPCs. Note: The stats given for the YYO are for Head to Head only. Ignore them if running the game Straight.

Head to Head: If you have 4 or more players, you can split them into 2 groups, and have one side play the spookybeans and the other play the YYO. Try to balance the number of characters on each side.

Running the Game

Play up the antagonism between the spookybeans and the YYO; these are two groups that really hate each other.

Insert a spookybean NPC (pick one of the unused PCs) into the group, it makes it easier to provide guidance if necessary. If running head to head, do this for both groups.

Give out Oooh points like candy, and encourage players to spend them in the same manner.

If it seems too easy for the players, keep pumping up the Adversity. It’s a direct measure of how much you want the players to fail at what they’re doing.

Tar is mainly a pacing mechanic. If things are going too quickly, up the Tar a notch or two on the next conflict to slow it down. Conversely, if the story is dragging, lower the Tar on the next conflict and get to the good stuff.

Don’t commit to a Conflict unless you are able to live with the Stakes. Step 1 is very important.

Let the players drive the story, but be prepared to take the reins back if necessary.

Don’t be afraid to say No if a player is trying to do something stupid (especially with a Coincidence or Development roll).

Let the players do whatever they want to raise the money, even if the whole town gets trashed in the process, because hey, it’s funny.

Possible hare-brained schemes

Stage a wacky bank robbery/kidnapping. Hold a bake sale/car wash/benefit concert. Challenge the YYO to some sort of competition. Blackmail them, or just kill them.

Endgame After 3 days of fundraising/blackmail/armed robbery mayhem, it’s time to total up everyone’s Happy-Happy and Doom-Doom scores. If running the scenario straight, compare the whole group’s Happy-Happy to their Doom-Doom. If running head to head, compare one group’s Happy-Happy to the other’s. If the spookybeans earned enough Happy-Happy points, the Euphorium is saved! If not, then the bulldozers are running… After determining the fate of the store, compare each character’s individual Happy-Happy and Doom-Doom totals to see where they all end up. Dramatis Personae Chad Bradley: The president of Bradley Real Estate Ventures, LLC. Always dressed like he’s ready to go play tennis. Has a really bad hairpiece. Harold “Smokey” Lindenberg: Owner of the Euphorium. A receding hairline hasn’t deterred him from wearing his hair long, and he is in a constant haze from years of chemical experimentation. Arianna “Sunflower” Martin-Lindenberg: Manager of the Euphorium, and Smokey’s wife. A consummate flower child, Sunflower has her head in clouds of a completely different sort. Places to Go The Hollow: The neighborhood where everything takes place. An eclectic mixture of Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury, and the very worst aspects of American suburbia. It’s about 30 square blocks, bordered on the west by The Highway, on the East by the elevated commuter train, on the south by The River (across which is The City proper), and on the north by The Hills (the rich neighborhood). Slumber Hollow Memorial Gardens: A sprawling 200 year-old cemetery squatting smack in the center of the neighborhood. Ross Perot High School: Most of the PCs are teenagers, so this is where you’ll find them from 8 to 3 every weekday. Javasaurus Rex: Trendy independent coffee house. Berzerkoid: Old school video arcade. Zippy Mart: 24 hour convenience store. The Violet Eye: Dusty old occult shop. Lenore’s Demise: Goth club. Drill Bitz: Tattoo & piercings. And of course, The Euphorium.

Quickstart Pack Page 2 Spo()ybeans! The Goth Comix Roleplaying Game

Character Creation Ground rules

No two characters can share the same traits. Each character must be worthy of a story.

Overview 1. Name: Make it a good one. 2. Concept: Sum up your character in one simple phrase. 3. Thingies: Come up with one to three abilities for your

character. 4. Allocate up to 15 points among your Concept and your

Thingies. Each ranges from 1 to 5 (least relevant to most relevant, respectively).

5. Whatever points you have left go into Oooh. 6. Happy-Happy: Come up with a good ending for your

character. 7. Doom-Doom: Everyone hand their sheet to the player on

their left. Come up with a bad ending for the character you’ve just been handed. Now hand all the sheets back.

8. Both Happy-Happy and Doom-Doom start at 0. 9. Come up with a description, background, and other stuff of

interest. 10. If you are an accomplished artist, draw a picture of your

character, or if you’re a talentless worm, get someone else to do it.

Dice

Use any dice, as long as they’re even-sided. Odd numbers are Skulls (good). Even numbers are Glooms (bad). For playing cards, black cards are Skulls, and red cards are

Glooms. For coins, heads are Skulls, and tails are Glooms.

Oooh You can spend Oooh points during a conflict to boost a roll. You can earn Oooh points by Taking Ouchies. Ouchies Ouchies turn failed rolls into successful ones, at the expense of your character’s dignity. Each Ouchie will generally be worth 1-5 Oooh points, depending on how entertaining it is. Each subsequent Ouchie must be more severe than the last, so start off small. Unnatural Coincidences You have the power to make things happen that are totally disconnected from your character. Roll your Concept during an existing Conflict, vs. an Adversity number set by the GM. If you make it, it happens, just like that. The nature of the coincidence has to be in accordance with your Concept. Development Rolls You can add new Thingies to your character sheet by rolling your Concept during an existing conflict, vs. an Adversity number set by the GM, and the number of successes (your Skulls minus the GM’s Skulls) is the rating of the new Thingy, which is ready to be used right away.

Conflict System Conflicts consist of a series of rolls, the aim of which is to knock down your opponent’s Tar score. 1. Determine Stakes: What happens if you win? What

happens if you lose? If you don’t like the stakes, now’s the time to speak up.

2. GM sets Tar for each side:

Scale of the Conflict Tar Indy and the sword guy in Raiders 1

Sketchy 2 Moderate (default) 3

Westley & Inigo in The Princess Bride 4 Roddy Piper & Keith David in They Live 5+

3. Player grabs # of dice equal to most relevant Thingy (or

Concept if it’s a Coincidence or Development roll), plus any Oooh they decide to spend.

4. If PC vs. NPC, GM grabs a number of Adversity dice:

Adversity Level Dice Super Easy-peasy 4

Average 6 Kinda Sorta Hard 8

Really Hard 10 Haven’t had an Ouchie in a while, have you? 15+

If PC vs. PC, 2nd player grabs dice as per step3. 5. Everyone roll the dice! Huzzah! Whoever gets the most

Skulls wins the roll. If PC vs. PC, skip to step 8. Otherwise…

6. If player fails the roll, they can accept the failure, or they can opt to take an Ouchie.

7. An Ouchie reverses # of Skulls rolled for each side for this roll only. Narrate details of the Ouchie. GM will award a # of Oooh points based on how severe, embarrassing, painful, or amusing the Ouchie is. Each new Ouchie must meet or exceed the award of the previous Ouchie.

8. If Tar was set to 1, then go to step 13. Otherwise… 9. Subtract the loser’s Skulls from the winner’s, that’s how

many successes the winner has. 10. Subtract # of successes from the loser’s Tar, and add them

to the winner’s Tar. 11. The loser of the roll narrates the details of the exchange. 12. Repeat Steps 3-11 until one side or the other is reduced to 0

Tar, or something else intervenes that renders Conflict a moot point.

13. Conflict ends in a manner outlined by the stakes. Winner earns 1 point of Happy-Happy, loser earns 1 point of Doom-Doom.

Happy-Happy and Doom-Doom At the beginning of the story, the GM sets the conditions for ending the story. When the main story is over, compare each character’s Happy-Happy and Doom-Doom scores. Whichever is higher determines how each individual character ends up, narrated in a Mallrats-style montage. If there are victory conditions for the story itself, total up everyone’s Happy-Happy and Doom-Doom, and compare to see how the story itself ends.

Edgar Allen Ravenspoe

Mopey Artist 5

Draw Anything 4

Turn on the Waterworks 3

A bit of a wimp if confronted

directly

Nina Ann Ravenspoe

Kinderbat 4

Lunchbox Fu 3

Teddy Talks to Me 2

3

6

Is forced to sell out and loses

his soul to Corporate America

Goes on to publish a highly

successful underground comic

Starting to get tired of having to get

her brother out of trouble

Grows up to be an aerobics instructor

at the local mall

Eventually opens her own gothic

clothing store downtown

Lillianne St. James

Surly Goth Princess 5

Dad’s Got Bags of Money 4

Club Scene Diva 3

Terminally irritable

Hates her little brother Clarence

Used to be friends with Victoria until

HS

Crazy Tracy

Psycho Chick 4

Brain-melting Dialog 3

Unnerving Stare 2

Big Knife 1

3

5

Daddy cuts up her credit cards

Becomes a big-time club promoter

Always distracted by the voices in

her head

The men in the white coats take

Tracy away to the Crazy House

Goes on to pioneer a new

breakthrough in Reality Physics

Pauline

Living Dead Girl 5

Surprisingly Sociable 4

Razor Sharp Teeth 3

Pale blue skin, yellow eyes

Staggers a bit

Has an annoying habit of trying to

eat people’s brains

Chainsaw Dave

Professional Maniac 5

Trusty Chainsaw JAWZ 4

3

6

Is forced to work the front door at

SprawlMart

Realizes her dream to open a Beatnik

coffee shop

Smells of motor oil

His buzz is worse than his bite

There is an unfortunate incident

involving a school bus full of fifth-

graders

Pursues a career in ice sculpture

Droo

Manic Culture Vulture 4

Stompy Dance 3

Video Game Guru 2

Just a little bit creepy

Zorak the Mighty

Exiled Alien Mastermind 5

Alien Technology 4

Outsmart Puny Hu-mans 3

Ray Gun 2

6

1

Gets sucked into a nightmare

dimension and tortured for Eternity

Goes on to develop some controversial

but highly successful video games

Megalomaniacal to the extreme,

banished from his home planet

Is revealed as an alien, and is forced

to appear on late night talk shows

Sets up new base of operations in the

Euphorium’s basement

3

Pierce Worthington

Young Republican 4

Ruthlessly Ambitious 3

Too Smart for his own Good 2

3

Conniving, condescending, and

ultimately cowardly

Victoria Prescott

The Meanest Girl in School 5

Gossip Queen 4

Go for the throat 3

5

“In other news, stock fraud hearings

are set to begin for CEO Pierce

Worthington…”

“I, Pierce Worthington, do solemnly

swear to uphold the office of President

of the United States…”

Snubbed former friend Lillianne

after graduating Junior High

Victoria manages to alienate all of hr

friends, and ends up living a bitter,

lonely existence

Victoria marries a highly successful

plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills

5

Brock Harwood

Varsity Fullback 4

Kill the Guy With the Ball 3

Walk it Off 2

275 lbs. Of pure muscle

Not the sharpest tool in the shed

Summer Johanson

Hyper Cheerleader 4

Make People Cheer 3

Bouncy Dance 2

5

A bad knee injury in his junior year

ends his football career, he ends up

working at a box factory

“Brock Johnson, your team just won

the Super Bowl!” What are you

gonna to next?” “I’m going to

Disneyworld!!”

Everyone invariably finds her

mindless optimism either annoying

or infectious

Ends up a boring housewife

Joins the Laker Girls

5

Doreen Worthington

Moral Fascist 4

Withering Stare 3

Has a Violent Streak 2

Pierce’s younger sister

On a Mission From God

Ana Bradley

Class President 4

Perfectionist 3

Obsessive-Compulsive 2

Flip Out 1

6

Ends up in a the middle of a scandal

involving a Congressman

Realizes her dream to banish Howard

Stern and Opie & Anthony from the

planet

Chad Bradley’s daughter

Prone to sudden mood swings

Has a complete mental breakdown by

age 23, ends up addicted to Prozac

and Valium

Graduates at the top of her class at

Harvard Law School

5

Clarence St. James

Spoiled Rich Kid 5

Mom & Dad Like Me Best 4

Temper Tantrum 3

Lillianne’s bratty little brother

Has no control over the volume of his

voice

Always has his PSP with him

Brandi, Mandi, Candi, & Claire

Cheerleader Bunnies 4

Hive Mind 3

Acrobatics 2

3

“Would you like to Supersize your

order?”

First in line at Toys R Us for a

Playstation 4

Between the four of them, they just

might have enough individuality

and intellect to add up to one whole

person.

Petty infighting destroys the group

and they go their separate ways

Best Friends 4 Ever!